Payment issue

Question

I paid the £8.49 monthly charge and it has been taken from my bank fir the upgraded Microsoft Personnel Extra storage. I had exceeded my limit so went to the next package yet it has not activated in my account or brought my storage down. At the moment I am unable to send any emails. When I go into this storage area it keeps asking me to pay again but this money has left my account.

Answer 1

Hello,

Did you purchase the subscription directly from the Microsoft Store, or through a third-party service such as Google Play or the Apple App Store?

When you sign in to your Microsoft account and check your order history page, do you see this purchase listed there?

https://account.microsoft.com/billing/orders

Answer 2

Hello, thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

If you exceed your OneDrive storage limit, your account will be placed in a frozen state, and you will no longer be able to send or receive emails normally.

If you free up space or upgrade the storage on your account, it usually takes about 2–4 hours for the increased storage to be reflected in your account, and 24–48 hours for your account to be fully unfrozen.

You can check whether your subscription is active in your Microsoft account by signing in to the Services & Subscriptions page here:

https://account.microsoft.com/services

---

If your subscription is active, wait 2-4 hours and then visit the OneDrive storage settings page to see if your storage is updated in your account.

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/accounts-category/storage

Open an incognito tab and sign in with your account on the link above.

Try sending an email after 24 hours.

Let me know if you still need more help.

---

Answer 3

The payment has likely been processed, but the additional storage and unified quota have not yet updated across the account.

Key points from Microsoft guidance:

1. Storage updates can take up to 24 hours
   • After purchasing more OneDrive or Microsoft 365 storage, it can take up to 24 hours for the new quota to appear and for restrictions (like not being able to send email) to clear.
   • If the quota has not updated after 48 hours, contact Microsoft support.
2. What happens when Microsoft Unified Storage is full
   • When the unified storage quota is exceeded:
     • Cannot upload, edit, or sync new files to OneDrive; existing files become read-only.
     • Cannot send or receive email in Outlook.com, even if email storage alone is not over quota.
   • This matches the current symptom of being unable to send emails.
3. How to get back under the storage quota
   • While waiting for the subscription to apply, either:
     • Delete files from OneDrive (including items in the OneDrive Recycle Bin) to reduce usage, and/or
     • Clean up Outlook.com mailbox (emails, attachments, deleted items) to free space.
   • Use the OneDrive “Manage your OneDrive storage” view to see what is taking space and empty the Recycle Bin.
4. If the upgrade still does not show
   • If more than 48 hours have passed since the charge and the storage still shows the old limit or Outlook still reports “storage limit exceeded,” contact Microsoft Support so they can check the subscription and billing status and correct the account.

Summary of actions:

1. Wait up to 24 hours from the time of purchase for the new storage to apply.
2. In the meantime, delete some OneDrive files (including Recycle Bin) and clean up Outlook.com to temporarily get under quota so email can work again.
3. If nothing changes after 48 hours, contact Microsoft Support with the payment details so they can fix the subscription linkage.

---

References:

• OneDrive billing questions
• What does "Microsoft Unified Storage is full" mean?
• My OneDrive says it's full
• Storage limits in Outlook.com
• Microsoft storage FAQs